File this in the bizarre but true category: take a look at Ed Balls’s website, and in particular his terms and conditions for use of the site:
The User undertakes:
(a) that they will only view the Information for their own private purpose and it [sic] will not publish, reproduce, store or retransmit any of the Information contained in the Web Site
In other words, if you’re – say – a journalist you are not allowed to view his website as part of your job. Hmmm.
P.S. If you do go to his site, I hope you then clear your web browser cache. You wouldn’t want to be caught storing any of the information from his site, would you?
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The Joy of Six 1594
A U-turn too far
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13 Comments
He might want to set up robots.txt so the Internet Archive doesn’t store his webpage then: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.edballs.com/ (teehee).
I doubt if there is a problem. On a quick look, the nearest to news on the site was: Please vote in your local poll.” “There is no poll today!”
Don’t think that is what this rather clumsily worded condition means at all. Just means it’s copyright surely.
I know it’s cruel, but it’s Sunday afternoon and I was bored. It’s all your fault for posting the T&Cs:
http://tinyurl.com/6mdezn
And his website does remind me of a sliding tile puzzle…
It gets better:
“The User undertakes with Ed Balls that it will treat as confidential the terms of this Agreement”
That would be the agreement on your official website, would it, Ed?
Haha, this doesn’t look like the sort of thing he would act on. Unless of course he disliked what someone wrote.
Argh! Awful.
It basically works and everything, but his creepy eyes are constantly staring at me through the (hard-to-read) flash menus.
Plus the landing page alone has 48 markup errors –
I know Prater Raines Lib Dem sites aren’t the prettiest sites, but their w3 standards are high.
And I bet they charge a helluva lot less than whoever made Balls’ dire site.
I am very sad to say that it comes as no surprise. This really is a government of horrid political midgets.
As Balls would say – “So What”.
Sorry, only trying to remind people who this creep is.
That Balls stuff is nothing… you can’t even LOOK at http://www.joanryan.net/ unless you REGISTER! (and you can only register if you are a constituent)
Oh, and to register you need to provide your name, address, home AND mobile telephone numbers, age group, email, inside leg measurement etc etc
Interestingly enough, she doesn’t mention how she’s going to use all this information. Surely there should be some sort of data protection bumpf on what rights I’m signing away?
And what exactly is she trying to hide on this website that you have to “log-in”. Are there other MPs who have this system? Mark P will know….
Helen,
Agree on the privacy/dp angle – but that is relatively quick to fix, and perhaps just an oversight like Mr Balls.
More seriously, “Constituents only” is an interesting idea. I can see that it will increase the quality of service she can provide to them.
But MPs also work in a “Parliament Representing the Range of Views in the Country” mode working on issues (e.g., Evan Harris on medicine or John Hemming on child protection, and in that mode she needs to be talking to all of us).
Interesting.
Thanks Matt
I agree, the privacy/dp thing is a quick fix, but a massive, glaring oversight. Clearly she’s had someone who knows what s/he’s doing building the site. Surely they know about data protection if they’ve ever put a form like that on a website.
Regarding the constituency issue, while I fully understand that she will put her own constituents first, it does seem very secretive. After all, what is this Minister doing in her constituency that she’s so frightened that the rest of us will see? Is she trying to protect herself from things like the Save our Post Office hypocrisy headlines?
I think it depends on whether she has other consultation methods as well.
I’m trying to find time to ask her for an interview as a response to Our Kingdom’s Networking Democracy debate, but it’s all a struggle at the moment … wp-cache fell over this AM and took me offline, so I’m behind.
I do love the thought of each MP’s consituents having to vote for their expense allowances, though …. including a graph of net asset value since they entered Parliament.
Matt